Drive for intermittently feeding a predetermined length of web material



c. v. ALLEN 2,998,760 RMITTENTLY FEEDING A PREDETERMINED Sept. 5, 1961DRIVE FOR INTE LENGTH OF WEB MATERIAL 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed March 25,1960 FIG! INVENTOR. CLAUDE M ALLEN Sept. 5, 1961 c. v. ALLEN 2,998,760

DRIVE FOR INTERMITTENTLY FEEDING A PREDETERMINED LENGTH OF WEB MATERIAL4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March 25, 1960 INVENTOR. CLAUDE V. AL EN C. V.ALLEN RMITTENTLY FEEDING A PREDETERMINE Sept. 5, 1961 DRIVE FOR INTELENGTH OF WEB MATERIAL 4 Sheets-Sheet :5

Filed March 25, 1960 INVENTOR. CLAUDE V. ALLE p 1961 c v. ALLEN2,998,760

DRIVE FOR INTERMITTENTLY FEEDING A PREDETERMINED LENGTH OF WEB MATERIALFiled March 25, 1960 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 CLAUDE V.ALLEN tern can bedesigned with a sun gear as the main gear instead of the ring gear or inconjunction therewith, but this would involve greater cost and be morespace consuming.

A roller 41 is mounted on a stub shaft 42 projecting from pinion 39, asbest seen in FIGS. 3 and 4. The roller 41 operates in the slot of aScotch yoke 43 aflixed at one end of a rack 45, causing the rack toreciprocate as shown by the arrow in FIG. 3. The rack 45 is connected bya suitable gear train, to be hereinafter described, to drive the pairsof feed rolls 18 and 19 for intermittently advancing the web to the dies11 and 12.

Preferably, the axis of shaft 42 and roller 41 is on the center line orpitch circle of the teeth of planet gear 39 and ring gear 40, and thepitch circle of ring gear 40 is made exactly twice that of planet gear39. Under these conditions, 180 rotation of planet gear 39, from itsposition shown in solid lines in FIG. 4 to the position shown in phantomlines, will move the roller 41 and hence rack 45 a maximum distance,equal to the diameter of the pitch circle of gear 40, in a straight linealong a diametrical line E-E which is parallel with the "length of rack45. Continuation of rotation of gear 39 for another 180 returns theroller to its initial position. Obviously, the use of a sun gear wouldcomplicate the design to obtain the maximum and straight line movementof the roller 41. t

In the position illustrated in FIG. 4, the axis of the planet pinion 39is also on the line E-E when the roller 41 is in its extreme position,that is, in starting position. If, however, the ring gear is firstturned so that pinion 39 starts from an initial position in which itscenter is offset from the line EE, the roller 41 will still move alongthe diametrical line 13-13 but its length of travel will be reduced andthe stroke of the rack 45 will thereby be shortened. This alfords adesirable way for adjusting the length of travel of rack 45 and hencethe feed of web 15, as will be more fully explained hereinafter.

Meshing with the gear teeth of rack 45 is a gear 46 keyed to a driveshaft 47 which is coupled to a main.- drive gear 50 by an over-runningclutch 48. Thus, referring to FIG. 3, movement of rack 45 toward theright drives gear 50 in the counterclockwise direction. When, however,rack 45 moves toward the left, gear 46 is reversed, but clutch 48nncouples and gear 50 is not reversed. The set of drive rolls "19 aredriven by gear 50 to advance the web 15 by means of spur gear 51 meshingwith drive gear 50 and with a spur gear 52. Gear 51 is keyed to theshaft of the lower drive roll 19, while gear 52 is keyed to the shaft ofthe upper drive roll. A similar set of gears 53 and 54 drive the pair offeed rolls 18. An overrunning, or backstop, clutch 55 couples gear 54 tothe shaft of upper feed roll 18 and insures that the web 15 will remainstationary on the return stroke of rack 45 in spite of any friction inthe system.

To prevent the web 15 from advancing further than the positive drivefrom the rack 45 due to inertia in the system, a brake 56 is included tostop the drive gear 50 upon reversal of the rack. Any suitable brake maybe used for this purpose, and it has been found that an electric brakesuch as the commercial device sold under the trade name Magnabrake byVickers Electric Division of the Sperry Corporation, is highly efficientfor this purpose. This brake comprises two rotating members or surfacesseparated by a constant gap having magnetic particles. When the brakestator coil is electrically energized, lines of magnetic force developwhich will, by mag netic attraction, stop one rotating member if theother is stopped. In the present invention, the drive shaft 47 iscoupled to one brake element and a second shaft 57 is coupled to theother. Drive gear 50 is connected to shaft 57 by gear 58, shaft 59 andgears 60 and 61. Thus, upon reversal of shaft 47, any inertial tendencyof gear 50 to continue to rotate is prevented by the operation of 4brake 56 whose magnetically coupled surfaces are then trying to rotatein opposite directions.

From the foregoing description, it is apparent that the rack 45, whendriven in one direction by its planetary gear system, feeds the paperweb 15 to the dies by operation of feed rolls 18 and 19. When the rackis driven in the opposite direction, the feed rolls and the web arestopped. The length of feed in each cycle is directly propontional tothe length of travel of rack 45 in one direction. To adjust the lengthof feed, an arcuate rack 64 is fastened to the outer periphery of ringgear 40 so that the ring gear may be turned by a worm 65. As best shownin FIG. 2, the worm may be operated by a hand wheel 66 affixed to oneend of the worm shaft 67. The turning of ring gear 40 by means of theworm 65 changes the initial position of planet gear 39 and thus altersthe length of travel of roller 41 which drives the rack 45.

Ihe worm adjustment may be used not only to adjust the feed of the web15 to a major degree, as changing from 36 inches to 18 inches at thestart of an operation, but also to minutely adjust the feed tocompensate for small errors during the operation. The latter may beaccomplished manually by means of wheel 66 or automatically by suitablecontrol means. A very simple automatic control includes a lever 69attached to a collar 70 having an integral friction disc 71. The collar70 and disc 71 are loosely mounted on worm shaft 67 but are frictionallycoupled by a friction disc 72 keyed to the worm shaft. Preferably, shaft67 is split at 73 and the two parts keyed to each other in such manneras to permit the hand wheel and right hand portion of the shaft to bepulled to the right so as to move the disc 72 out of frictional contactwith disc 71, thus operatively disconnecting the lever 69 fromthe shaftwhile the worm 65 is being adjusted manually.

The free end of lever 69 is disposed between a pair of solenoids 74, 75and resiliently biased to a central position between the plungersthereof by coil spring 76. The solenoids are connected in parallelacross a source of power through a switch 77 arranged to make one, orthe other or neither. The switch 77 is actuated by a conventionalreflective photocell, or electric eye, circuit generally referenced byblock 78, the photocell being designated 79 and positioned above the web15 between the feed rolls 18 and 19, as shown in FIG. 1.

The paper being fed to the cutter dies normally bears indicia ormarkings so that if the feed is too great or too small the electric eyecircuit 78 will generate out of register signals of different types orpolarity. These out of register signals are used to impulse one 01' theother of solenoids 74, 75 through a mechanical, electrical orelectromagnetic tie between the photoelectric circuit and switch 77.When a solenoid is energized, the lever 69 is moved slightly therebycausing the worm 65 to rotate the ring gear 40 in a direction to correctthe advance or feed of the web. After each correction, the springs 76return the lever 69 to its center position between the solenoids. Thus,the corrective adjustments of gear 40 do not accumulate.

If the machine operator notices that the corrections are occurring toofrequently, he may pull hand wheel 66 to disengage the lever 69 fromworm shaft 67 and manually turn the worm to a new feed setting whichwill permanently correct the web feed. Releasing the hand wheel willreengage frictional couplings 71, 72 to activate the automatic means forfine adjustments through the electric eye system described. In apreferred embodiment, good results are obtained by design of theplanetary gearing system and its adjustment worm to provide a webcorrection of 0.005" with A5 stroke of the solenoid plungers.

A practical embodiment of the planetary gear and rack portion of thedescribed feed-up drive is illustrated in FIGS. 5, 6 and 7. This portionof the drive is here shown enclosed in a circular, pan-shaped housing 80whose open side is closed by a flat wall 81 of the machine 10. The shaft36, FIG. 2, for elliptical gear 35 is coupled to the input shaft 36' bycoupling 82. The input shaft 36' is journaled in suitable bearings andseals in an opening in casing 80. The crank 37 is constituted by a hubon which the shaft 38 of the planet gear 39 is eccentrically mounted.

The hub 37 is journalled by a bearing 83 in a ring support 84 carried bythe ring gear 40 which in turn is journalled in the casing 80 by abearing 85. The stub shaft 42 carrying roller 41 on an axis in line withthe pitch circles of planet gear 39 and ring gear 40 in its extremepositions is supported by a cranklike support arm 86 fastened to planetgear 39. The Scotch yoke 43 is disposed at an angle to the verticalwithin casing 80, as best shown in FIG. 6, the rack 45 being extendedfrom both sides of the yoke for movement in bearings 87, 88 secured indiametrically opposed openings in the casing 80.

Also within casing 80, and secured to the ring gear 40 through theintermediate ring support 84, is the arcuate Worm segment 64 in meshingengagement with the worm 65. The worm shaft 67 is journalled in andprojects out of the bottom of the casing by means of suitable bearingsand seals 89, 90 for operation by means of the hand wheel 66 or asuitable automatic control system. In this embodiment, the automaticelectric eye adjustment, previously described, is not shown. The housing80 is provided with openings for oil fill, oil drain and venting, thesebe ing normally closed by the usual plugs respectively shown at 92, 93and 94.

The operation of the improved feed-up drive described above should nowbe apparent with the following additional clarification. Referring toFIGS. 1-3, particularly, the input to the cutter die eccentrics isarranged to vary from approximately 150 rpm. for feed of a 36 inch sheetto approximately 240 rpm. for an 18 inch sheet. Each rotation, or cycle,of the cutter crank shaft includes about 255 turn while the cutter diesare open for feed of the paper web and about 105 of turn while the diesare closed and the feed is stopped. The timing belt 25, as previouslyexplained, synchronizes the rotation of input gear 28 of the feed-updrive with that of the die eccentric crank shaft.

In the feed-up drive, the operation of elliptical gears 34 and 35 issuch as to drive rack 45 to the right in FIG. 3 during the 255 turn ofthe die crank shaft to feed the web to the dies. During this portion ofthe cycle, the paper web is accelerated from stop to about 800 feet perminute during the first 40 turn of elliptical gear 34. This speed ismaintained substantially constant during turning of the gear from 40 toabout 200", and from 200 to 255 the paper is decelerated from 800 feetper minute to a complete stop. While the elliptical gear 34 completesits turn, i.e., the remaining 105, the gear 35 turns 180 during reversalof the rack 45, but feed of the paper web remains stopped by reason ofoperation of the overrunning clutch 48 and brake 56.

Small correction adjustments in the feed length of the web may be mademanually by the machine operator or automatically by operation of theelectric eye system, as previously explained. Moreover, the rack 64 andworm gear 65 also enable major adjustment of the feed length. Forexample, in a preferred embodiment, an adjustment of nine revolutions ofhand wheel 66 is suflicient to rotate the ring gear 40 through 33 and tochange the paper feed lengths from 18 inches to 36 inches. It isapparent that the described feed-up drive is highly advantageous in thatthese adjustments to the feed may be made without stopping the machineto change gears or cams.

As previously stated, the planetary system may include a sun gear,either in place of the planet carrying crank 37, or as a main gear inplace of the ring gear 40. In the latter event, the adjustment of thesun gear would effect variation of the feed-up drive. Similarly, otheradjustment arrangements may be employed, especially for smallcorrections, but the rack 64 and worm have the advantage of accuracy andthe ability for major adjustment of feed length.

Although certain specific embodiments of the invention have been shownand described, it is obvious that many modifications thereof arepossible. The invention, therefore, is not to be restricted exceptinsofar as is necessitated by the prior art and by the spirit of theappended claims.

That which is claimed as new is:

1. In combination with a creasing and blank forming press and pressoperating means for closing and opening the dies of said press, a drivefor intermittently feeding a predetermined length of web material,comprising a pair of feed rolls, a drive gear for said rolls, a driveshaft, an overrunning clutch connecting said drive gear and shaft toturn the gear in one direction only, a pinion on said shaft, a rackengaging said pinion for turning said shaft in two directions, arotatably mounted ring gear, a planetary gear meshing with andrevolvable around said ring gear, a crank on said planetary gear anddrivingly connected with said rack, and control means engaged with saidring gear for normally retaining said ring gear stationary but enablingangular adjustment thereof to selectively vary the length of webmaterial fed by each stroke of said rack, and including an arcuate rackaflixed to said ring gear and a worm in mesh with said arcuate rack,drive means connecting said press operating means and said planetarygear to synchronize the feed of Web by said feed rolls with the openingof the press dies, and means for automatically turning said worm toadjust the length of web feed to a predetermined length and in cluding alever frictionally secured to the worm shaft, a pair of solenoidsarranged to move the lever in opposite directions, and photoelectricmeans disposed near said feed rolls at the entrance of the Web tocontrol operation of one or the other of said solenoids in accordancewith the over or under length of Web being fed to the press.

2. A machine according to claim 1 wherein the plungers of said pair ofsolenoids are connected to said lever by springs normally biasing thelever to a central position.

3. A machine according to claim 2 wherein said lever is disengageablefrom the Worm shaft by manual means provided for turning said worm andadjusting said arcuate rack.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS657,418 Inman Sept. 4, 1900 1,135,990 Bronander Apr. 20, 1915 2,006,040Crane June 25, 1935 2,028,145 Coty Jan. 21, 1936 2,054,406 Betts Sept.15, 1936 2,934,339 Davis et al Apr. 26, 1960

